Barium titanate ceramic inks for continuous ink-jet printing synthesized by mechanical mixing and sol-gel methods

Ink-jet printing of ceramic thick films is one of low cost on-site ceramic pattern fabrication methods. It is necessary to investigate the rheological behaviour of ceramic inks and drying behaviour of droplets. Two kinds of BaTiO3 ceramic inks were prepared by mechanical mixing and sol-gel methods, respectively. The effect of preparation parameters, such as quantity of polyacrylic acid(PAA) and solid content, on physicochemical and rheologic properties of the ceramic inks was investigated. The results show that they satisfy the requirements of continuous ink-jet printing. The appearances of printed dots and single printed layers were observed by SEM. The SEM images indicate that dots printed with mixing method ink are in ring shape, and dots printed with sol-gel method ink are in pancake shape, so the printed layer surface with the latter ink is smoother. The causes of these phenomena were discussed.